[cpforlife.org]

Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List

[RLK]

I think we ought to do it the old way. One man. One woman. One commitment. Anything else brings problems beyond the limits of my simple mind.

[Notwithstanding]

A friend's academic paper on the Catholic view of this will be published soon. He presented on the topic in class today - funny that this would be in the news on the same day.

[Desdemona]

ping

[skr]

I don't like the idea of petrie-dish people, but the embryos that are already here should be adoptable and not treated as property one can destroy. Then ban all the rigmarole that leads to this and start adopting the children already here.

[Coleus]

2376 Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only through each other."

2377 Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children." "Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses' union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person."

2378 A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The "supreme gift of marriage" is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged "right to a child" would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right "to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents," and "the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception."

[hunter112]

"But here's what bothers me. I'm afraid that, if it's seen as the 'perfect solution' for infertility, it will be more likely to become the norm. If infertile couples start clamoring for fertilized eggs, it will help to further 'institutionalize' the practice of in-vitro fertilization."

Does legalized adoption of born children increase the number of out-of-wedlock pregnancies?

I think this is a specious argument. Better that those small lives go someplace wanted, rather than compounding whatever wrongdoing someone might have committed in creating them, by destroying them, or letting them go past potential viability.

[WaterDragon]

Interesting. A creative attack on dehumanizing the human foetus.

[hocndoc]

The children exist.
They are human.
They have been created in a hazardous position - in harm's way - and virtually *anything* done to them (including doing nothing) has risk.
But, the best chance is implantation of one or two embryos into women who, along with their husbands, are willing to adopt them.

The irony is that the best chance for the children is for them to be adopted by women who have already "proven" their ability to bear children.

I would like to see more responsibility in harvesting oocytes and in the numbers of oocytes fertilized, implanted, and frozen. No more children created by IVF with the idea that there could *be* "spare" humans!

But, first, I think there needs to be more education of the public about the humanity of the embryo and of the ethics of inalienable human rights.